Tuesday, August 29, 2006

"You're making us all look bad."

Since it's made Renegade Evolution "livid," I did go ahead and read the latest blaming of the patriarchy after all (you can find the link via the above link). not gonna bother addressing it in detail, just, this bit:Perhaps not, but, well, it’s just that certain of your so-called choices are making the whole group look bad. Men appear to have gotten the impression that women are not, you know, quite as entitled as men are. So they’ve institutionalized ‘beauty,’ dieting, cosmetic surgery, sexual harassment, wife-beating, and rape, to name but a few of the thousand unnatural shocks female flesh is heir to. We’re blaming the patriarchy, not you, but really, mightn’t it be time to step up?

caught my slightly bloodshot eye.

you know, besides the seriously annoying conflation of "institutionalized 'beauty'" with rape and wife-beating, and, once again, the utter refusal to put any of this in -any- sort of serious economic framework (will there still be fine restaurants after the Revolution, do we think? corporations? luxury goods and services? media or business or money transactions of -any- sort? oh, wait, the Revolution's never actually happening, so it's entirely academic, thank God)

1) What do you mean "us," white First World genteel Prod middle-to-upper-class cisgendered spinster girl?

and yes, I actually could technically be "us" for quite a lot of that; and I'm still not with you, because

2) The whole "you must curb your stereotype-pandering appearance and/or lifestyle/subcultural choices for the sake of the Movement" business is, simply put, crap. It was crap when the polite suited and tied white middle-class homosexuals were pulling it on the "flaunting" drag queens and butch dykes (who were the ones getting their heads busted and their asses in the jails); it's crap when well-heeled, well-assimilated ethnic minorities use it on their "ghetto" or "country" or "FOB" or "lazy" brethren and sistren; it was crap when the socialists of Orwell's day were bitching out their fellow travellers for "bourgeois" practices like keeping a rose garden; and it's crap here, too.

and oh, yes: while of course this phenomenon has nothing to do with what's going on here, it is also crap when not-especially-politicized or even reactionary "good girls" use it on their "slutty" or "bimbo" or "trashy" sisters. Rivals. Whichever. Six of one.

Let's just put it on the table, shall we? The problem here is not that you're "too radical." You're not, in fact, radical at all. For that matter, the problem isn't that you're not radical enough, either; although y'know, I know this is a wacky notion, but there might just be aspects of the culture and your own inner workings that you've yet to explore or even consider. The problem isn't even that you have been Meanie McMeanerton (yes, yes, it's all for our own good, no doubt). The problem here, in short, is that you are utterly full of it.

Look, you know what: blame away to your tiny little heart's content. I won't try to convince you that my "choices" are "empowering." I won't in fact try to convince you of anything at all, since your positions are apparently frozen in amber, and, frankly, at this point I'm mostly just sort of bored and repelled by the whole thing.

At the same time, you're not gonna convince me that the retro-feminist version of "Go Fug Yourself" is in service to revolution, or any sort of useful progress, or indeed anything at all other than your own rather obscure but nonetheless utterly wanky, power-tripperiffic way of getting off.

And speaking of getting off, it is way past time I get off this particular ride and stay off, because the refrain is already seared into my unhappy brain and I know, i KNOW that it will never, ever change:

It's a world of blowjobsAnd fetish heelsIt's a world of spoogeAnd of "sexbot" squealsThere's so much there to fearThat it's time that we hearIt's a small-but-Patriarchal world after all

It's a small (Patriarchal) world after allIt's a small (Patriarchal) world after allIt's a small (Patriarchal) world after allIt's a small, small, world

There is just one the'ryAnd just one WayAnd the RevolutionMight just happen one dayBut until that day comesThere is naught to be doneIt's a small-but-Patriarchal world after all!

It's a small (Patriarchal) world after allIt's a small (Patriarchal) world after allIt's a small (Patriarchal) world after allIt's a small, small, world.

It's a small (Patriarchal) world after allIt's a small (Patriarchal) world after allIt's a small (Patriarchal) world after allIt's a small, small, world...

...Huh. Well, at least she finally said it in as many words. Most of the other entries "Don't hate the blamer, hate the game" genre insist that of course we're not blaming women, because we all do what we gotta do, we all make our compromises, we're all sell-outs, so when I say you're going on sellout dates and having sellout sex, I'm not exempting myself, because, see, I eat the occasional sellout chicken wing and wear the occasional sellout wedge heel. What? Oh, no, my sexual choices are (currently) above reproach.

I appreciate this. It's consistent. I can't stand a moral code with no moral imperative; if you're gonna define certain behaviors as damaging to women, then you should be willing to say that people should abstain from them.

...So does she mean what she's saying, or not? Because a bunch of other commenters took her seriously and said approving things about her, and I don't see her calling them a bunch of hypersensitive assholes.

Huh, if twisty's brand of "post revolution feminist world" is the option...please, please, please oh vile and opressive patriarchy never, ever, ever fall!!! I am too young to become the leader of an armed and violent resistance.

And you know, she never needs to worry about sexual gratification, she has a lot of readers more than happy to verbally jerk her off every time she speaks.

it kind of bums me out, the thrash that went on about her, who she is, what's she's doing i her life and why. there's an older post in there where someone disses her as a writer and she goes for a walk with her friend, seriously wondering why and obviously hurt by the comment. from some random stranger.

mama mia.

who said it not too long ago: there's a real person there and she has feelings. ?

Apparently Twisty regular wabewawa has decided that I am a very naughty boy for being disloyal to Twisty or something. I'm not supposed to snark simultaneously here and there, apparently. Or something.

BB's on her own blog mostly and apparently Dubhe has a work schedule that makes it inconvenient to write. This is something I understand. Neither appear at Twisty's very regularly since the original BDSM flamewar, I think.

Yes. Apparently, for snarking out here, wabewawa claims that she (?) has never seen such "weaselly" behaviour in a long time. My behaviour, she is referring to.

I still don't understand why she is complaining NOW, because I haven't done anything I don't normally do in full public view. She should have applied the corrective punishment MUCH earlier than this...

"take it to the corn" is (I had been given to understand) shouted during certain wrasslin' matches which feature slosh-y sexxxy pits of food and other substances to roll around in. I learned this on the BBS where i cut my virtual teeth, along with "obdurate fuckstain" and many other fine turns of phrase.

googling turns up nothing but my own contributions on the subject, which leads me to suspect that it's actually even more random than I had thought. which is totally fine.

"pudding" could I suppose work in lieu of creamed corn. again i have no personal experience with this.

also "um. I like pudding" is something i like to say when the conversation at BL's gets particularly academic. just because.

"HEY BABY! SHOW US YOUR [FEMINIST] CREDS!!" should be fairly obvious...

and i have no idea what motivated wabawawa (??) to speak now after holding hir peace for so long. especially since i have no ieda who this is. maybe (s)he suddenly realized "goddam, i have a really silly handle" and decided to take it out on you?

i'm just rather amazed that i made Twisty's radar at all, frankly; and why now? i mean, speaking of "what took them so long?" it would have probably been better back when i actually, you know, gave much of a shit.

FSM, Firefox decides to load your blog from the cache, and next thing I know, I miss out on a juicy sex wars post.

Oh well. I'd write about how the "For the good of the movement" thing is analogous to faux pragmatism that posits a few issues to toss overboard that happen to coincide exactly with those the speaker doesn't like, but Feministing's empowering me to ignore sex-negative radicalism entirely.

I left UTI and got my own blog about a week ago... and it was a pretty big pain in the ass, largely because I'm a navel-gazing stat-seeker.

It really depends on what you're looking to transfer from this blog. If you want to transfer all your posts, it's going to be a lot worse, I presume. The same applies if you want to transfer the looks. But if you just need a new server plus warm bodies to read your blog, I'm pretty sure it'll be smooth.

...you know. I have to say something else. Weirdly enough? (or not). At this point I have a -lot- more respect for a number (not all; I still do have a problem with people who've abused my friends and/or generally act like a Compleat brick wall, but that's hardly limited to any one ideology of course, and it's not everyone)...

...I have a lot more respect for some of the smaller-blog radical and/or anti-porn(stitution) feminists than I do TF. Even if I still disagree with them on quite a bit of shit; even if I'm still getting into slapfests with some of them here 'n' there. Slapfests: ultimately not that big a damn deal.

What -is- a big deal to me is disingenuousness. Or, as someone else put it recently in quite another context, "intellectual dishonesty." And emotional dishonesty, I might say.

Veronica over at Nine Pearls has a nice post, also riffing off this same TF entry, here about her irritation at the general condescension toward younger bloggers. In the middle of a fine rant, she has this, almost as an aside:

***

However, I got backpedaling out of Twisty:

"Hey, I never said “everyone under 30 is a moron.” Why do you young whippersnappers always have to put words in granny’s mouth?"

Which is true. She didn’t “say” it. She implied it. And, then refused to acknowledge the implication. Which is pretty fucking amusing coming from someone imploring us all to “examine” our lives.

Just saying.

***

This is actually not petty. This is -exactly- what has been driving me around the fucking bend wrt this woman for months now. "Examine" everyone but your own goddam self. Often using harsh glaring spotlights and sharp cutting instruments; but oh! we must protect your own tender bits from exposure at all costs!

Yeah, it's about sex and all that sociopolitical jazz (too); but it's hardly limited to that. Ultimately it's about being...

A bully.

Yeah, I said it.

Again. (sigh). yeah, I have my own mishegos to work with here, too, I realize. Onward and upward:

Say some seriously nasty shit, -not- about your purported powerful targets but in fact directed to the young, the female, the marginalized, the vulnerable...the -specific- people who post, often with completely good will and good humor, on your blog or elsewhere...all couched in ever-so-genteel and amusingly cutting language, just plausibly deniable so that your usual crowd of enab--um, supporters can, in the aftermath, all furrowed brows and fretting hands, find ways to explain how she didn't -really- mean to say -that,- not -really;- and besides, she's just so funny, so -clever,- so -cute- when she does this, coddle coddle twinkle coddle.

And then when someone who's had enough finally -does- call you on your shit, backpedal like crazy and make vague appeals to some sort of bullshit sociopolitical justification for what was just. plain. garden-variety. Cruel.

And, worse, almost inevitably, picking on someone not her own size.

Granny my ass.

Listen, I love my granny, but that's because she doesn't fucking cut me down at every opportunity and then tell me it's 1) for my own good 2) just a joke anyway, lighten up! Haw, haw!

It's -not- been a one-off thing, attributable to a bad day or whatnot. It's been a constant theme. -Constant.- Never even once, that I've seen at least, mitigated by a single "gee, you know what, that one -was- kind of over the line: I'm sorry I hurt you."

-That- is my problem from the blue, blue sky.

And I'll tell you something else: yeah, many of the smaller bloggers who worship this woman (or not; lately, I don't know, but it seems like stuff like writing approvingly about an article in a rabidly misogynist/reactionary British tabloid tends to turn some feminists off, for some reason) are capable of crazy-mean behavior too, no doubt. But at least with some of them I know where they're coming from: horrific abuse on multiple levels. But that by itself isn't what makes the crucial difference for me (we've all got our shit): no, what -does,- is that a number (not all) of these women -also- are capable of expressing real compassion for the person (virtually) in front of them. I've seen it.

That's huge.

And, further, I know that a lot of them work their asses off in the name of this cause in real life: in domestic violence shelters, on rape crisis hotlines, in marches, on petition drives, in family court. Just keeping their own families fed and housed and clothed and the lights on, and still having time and kindness for their chosen sisters. Heroic efforts.

-I respect this.-

And I also respect people who simply want to live their ordinary lives, use their blog as a way to let off steam, which may or may not inclued sociopolitical ranting of some sort or another. Hell, that's pretty much where I'm at.

But that's not how TF positions herself, see.

No; this is an -advanced- feminist. This is -radical revolutionary- thinking.

O.K.

So what's happened is, there are, last I checked anyway, two fairly distinct audiences there. Two and a half, maybe. Yes, I know: some people are personal, maybe even offline friends of hers, and no doubt she's -nothing at all- like her online persona in real life or even offstage, virtually speaking: all crammed full of depth and compassion and reciprocal tenderness and all-round menschness. That's great. Wouldn't dream of trying to get in the way of that. Seriously.

But see, all I have to go on is the online persona. And personally (like it wasn't already abundantly clear, right?), I find that persona a real piece of work. Utterly rigid. Utterly self-contained. genuinely nasty underneath the haha only joking crap. and cold.

Who, as I say, seems to have two pretty distinct audiences at this point. One is primarily made up of other smart, well-educated, cynical, moderately leftish folks who may or may not give a crap about the radical revolutionary shit, but think she's a swell fella. Funny, clever (hey, these things are IMPORTANT), likes good food and good booze and good banter, and boy, does she ever stick it to those rightwing reactionaries! Hoo! And yeah, huh, the feminist angle...well. We already were down with a lot of this; and/or, huh, never really considered some of this stuff, but, well, kind of makes you think. Huh.

The other is made up of some (not all) of the aforementioned radical feminists, who apparently see her as some sort of REVOLUTIONARY feminist Messiah. All bow down.

Yeah. And while I recognize the -multiple- ironies of trying to intervene in what is after all an apparently consensual if murky-boundaried power exchange (EXAMINE me, mama! Bare my ass for the paddling again; it hurts -so good-! Now let's get the popcorn and the virtual vibrating buttplug and watch while she flogs someone else, MM-MMM), I gotta say, just once:

-Are you fucking kidding me?-

Seriously, look. Much as I like to think i, too, Give A Crap about the world and the other people in it, I like and cling to my own privileges as much as the next person. Including eating yummy restaurant food and the sadistic joys of verbally filleting a loathéd enemy to rapturous applause. But I ain't calling myself no radical revolutionary. (Revolted, yes; revolutionary, no).

But if I did? If I -did?- Frankly? If I were looking for a charismatic, inspirational leader to overturn the whole goddam corrupt oppressive system, kit -n- kaboodle, POWER to the PEOPLE!! ? Somehow, I -don't- think that a former restaurant critic and cultural snob whose idea of utopia apparently revolves primarily around or at least gives high priority to ridding the world of nasssty porn and those godawful high heeled shoes and doesn't even have any better idea about how to go about doing -that- than scolding and shaming individual women...would be my first choice. Particularly not one who thinks, in her own words, (some shit just sticks with me, for better or for worse), "people are morons."

Not just young people. Not just right-wing people or anti-feminists or men or women. PEOPLE. You know, the ones we want to give power to.

psst. hey, o'butty. -That includes you.-

You are a moron.

rib-poke. bet I can make you smile while admitting that, tho'. See? Isn't this fun? Wheeee!

Zzzzz.

So, but yeah: I'm not expecting to change any of those minds here, Christ knows; any more than I would the poor bastards who send half their three-figure disability paycheck to the unctuous multimillionare televangelists every month, on account of they just find them so -inspiring.- What are you gonna do.

Hell, I'm not expecting to change any minds at all here; I'm just ranting. We all know about that, right?

And so when I say to the -other- folks who gosh darn it just can't stay mad at someone so -cute- and -clever,- the ones who are just as likely to look at those poor dumb deluded radical slobs who make up her sycophantic base with contempt as the woman herself, when you say things that essentially amount to, "Well, gosh darn it, yeah she can be mean and some of that shit is kind of wacky, but she's funny and often right-on and oh hell: at the end of the day, she -is- One Of Us"

--What is this "us" shit?

...it's rhetorical. I'm really not expecting an answer. Much less deprive anyone of their good times. Hell. I'm not even gonna ask you to -examine- your pleasure here. Whatever gets you through the night, eh?

I just wonder. Yeah, okay, we agree on 80%+ of other shit, and, good solidar-iriffic lefties that we are; we all gotta stick together. So, yeah, okay then. Next big activist action she initiates, you know, reproductive rights, say, or financial support for women without health insurance, or environmental something, or support for a good progressive political candidate: protest, letter-writing, fundraising, what you will: I'm in. Bells-a-ringing and flags-a-waving. Just say the word; I'll sign the petition. No cooties coming from the proximity of my signature next to hers, after all.

Meanwhile, however: if it's primarily about enlisting excited giggly-guts fighting in the online wars? If what "we're" really valuing about her is the ability to write crushingly amusing shit about the same things that piss most of us off; much less a potential ally in the battle against the Jeff Goldsteins and Dawn Edens of this virtual world? -Very- much less the ability to pick out some random innocuous consciousness-lowered slob, point out all the ways in which she's hurting herself and the Movement and in the process sending a zillion eager flying monkeys after her? You'll forgive me, perhaps, if I answer my own rhetorical question of "Who needs this shit?" with, "well, anyway, I don't."

So.

Oh, and yes. There is of course one other factor here. The woman's got the big C. She's had a really hard time these past couple years. What heartless bitchery, really, to be so unforgiving of the faultfinder's faults: don't I understand -she might die?-

Two things.

1) I'd be a lot more inclined to cut her slack for not feeling good if I'd ever seen any evidence of her doing the same for anyone else; or even expressing any real sympathy/empathy for anyone else's tsuris. No, I don't mean "outrage on behalf of the Oppressed;" I just mean plain ordinary decency. Not saying she never has done; just, in the months I've spent reading her and the blogs of the women who worship her, I personally don't recall seeing any such sentiment.

2) Newsflash: We're -all- going to die. And many if not most of us will probably suffer horribly one way or the other in the process as well as beforehand. Yeah, I'm afraid so. And in the grand scheme of things, what really matters is: what did you do in the meantime?

Yeah, cancer sucks. I get it. And I mean: I may very well get it. hell, seems like every other person I know has. (I -did- get it, if you count a melanoma. Not so far that big a deal in the greater scheme of things--caught it early: but uh yeah, scary, more so when you don't have health insurance, invasive fucking procedure, left a huge ol' scar). My mom included. Breast cancer (oh, and thyroid; that was a weird side thing, mostly, though, really). Nasty chemo, radiation, surgery, the whole works. Currently in remission, as far as we know. As it happens, however, she is currently awaiting the results for that very same genetic test that Twisty took. yeah, rare, but since we -do- belong to that ethnic group that tends toward it (Ashkenazim Jewish), it's well, worrisome. And oh yeah: I am her daughter. Currently fifty pounds overweight, childless, uninsured, heading into my mid-thirties. -shrug.- What are you gonna do. (Well, hopefully get insurance at least pretty soon. As I have said, or am about to say: really do have better things to do than this shit).

So. Yeah. Apparently I did have one rather good-sized shit left to give after all.

And I'd be lying if I said engaging in this kind of thing did not give me my very own sadistic/aggressive rush. Oh, the joy of battle! And sure, I know how entertaining it is to watch the virtual catfight. Hell, I like voyeurism as much as the next perv. Even exhibitionism, sometimes.

But the better part of me genuinely means it when I say: really, I don't want to perpetuate this. Not because I feel particularly inclined to replace my animosity toward this person with melting luv and compassion right now. Not because I give a rat's ass how it looks to "the other side" (whoever they are) when "we" (whoever "we" are) fight in public.

slippage, of course. So, amber, said the luddite, are you saying you need--well, what do you need? to transfer all your archives from one host to another? Say, Wordpress? Is that better? How much harder would it be to just get my own domain? how much could I expect it to cost?I know BL's already answered some of this for me, I apologize; I just have the Fear around techie shit, sometimes.

For all that they’re divided by ‘politics,’ these tinpot online communities function pretty much the same way across the spectrum. The politics is mostly ersatz, a means of social distinction (narcissism of small difs), expression of status anxiety, personal therapy. Difference between manifest & latent function. Maybe that’s what social movements are, or become.

I dunno about you, but participating in it gives me a lycanthropic feeling, like I'm turning into a great big furry drooling asshole. Better to stay away & furless.

Getting your own domain was $35 a year the last time I checked, which was in 2001. I think now you can get one for $24, tops.

Hosting is another thing, though. I think you can get decent hosting for $5/month, but I can be wrong. I know that SoapBlox, the very high-powered system that My Left Wing uses, costs $15/month plus $25 one-time. Typepad costs $5/month, but then you don't need a domain name.

Twisty is just a typical upper middle class woman with some edge on her mind who seemingly(I may be wrong) has the ability to spend inordinate amounts of time writing, posting on and maintaining a blog.

Also, Twisty is a professional writer and behaves like one. She doesn't write enough about her personal life to make her too vulnerable. Her choice and frankly I think a good one. The anecdote makes poor proof for one's argument.

Twisty I think enjoys the exchange and enjoys writing. She's pissed about the patriarchy. That's what you'll get there, no more.

And yes, I do think that these blogs are an important medium for views that cannot or will not get established venue. Good thing I say.

I have to work for a living and haven't the time to spend making a blog, writing essays daily, good thing that people whose world view are closer to mine than the herd of wingnuts is out there.

Anyway, many of her points are valid, whether she's someone I'd want to take to dinner, well I couldn't say, don't know her. or anyone else in the blogoshpere for all I know.

I remember getting so involved in AOL when it first came out long, long ago. I met some of the people I spoke with there in public.

I learned, the internet people need to stay in the internet. Keep the personal out of it, just stick to the topic. Same with Twisty, seems many get quite personally caught up in the blogs. Not worth it.

Quickly: BD, if you buy your own domain, you can install Wordpress (or something similar) on it. You don't need to know HTML. I recommend Dreamhost (full disclosure: if you put me in as a referrer I get $$$!) because they have one-click Wordpress installations. Easy as pie!

Hell, for that matter, Blogger also has an option to use it on your own domain instead of on Blogspot. I think Atrios does this, as well as countless other blogs. (This used to be the ONLY option Blogger offered; Blogspot hosting came later. I flirted with Blogger back when I started my blog in April 2002, but quickly became impatient with it and wrote my own.)

If you def. want to swtich from Blogger to something else though, you could get a wordpress.com account. It's like Blogspot, but it sucks less, because it's Wordpress instead of Blogger.

And like I said, there are scripts available for porting your entries from one blogging system to the other. This is how so many people have switched so easily from Movable Type to Wordpress once SixApart started charging for MT.

Say some seriously nasty shit, -not- about your purported powerful targets but in fact directed to the young, the female, the marginalized, the vulnerable...the -specific- people who post, often with completely good will and good humor, on your blog or elsewhere...all couched in ever-so-genteel and amusingly cutting language, just plausibly deniable so that your usual crowd of enab--um, supporters can, in the aftermath, all furrowed brows and fretting hands, find ways to explain how she didn't -really- mean to say -that,- not -really;- and besides, she's just so funny, so -clever,- so -cute- when she does this, coddle coddle twinkle coddle.

Oh, exactly. And that's why we're not on speaking terms anymore. Because the only response was, "Were you just having some weird moment there, or did you really mean to be that much of an asshole, you asshole?" And I realized that I just didn't want to hear the answer.

Every time I recap what she's said, it comes out full of profanity--peppered with "asshole" and "fucking idiot." Maybe it's just me, but that's what I'm getting.

I know exactly what you're referring to, piny. and yeah, that was a big part of my turn from "okay, pretty sour on her for personal reasons but I suppose she's got her good points" to "you know what, fuck this bullshit but GOOD." That not only made me furious but chilled me: she knew exactly what she was saying, and goddam but that was low, and completely uncalled for, and goddam but it's calculated just so that almost no one's gonna call her on it. What further depths of bubbling hatred lurk beneath that genteel veneer? no, I just don't want to know. just: UGH.

That not only made me furious but chilled me: she knew exactly what she was saying, and goddam but that was low, and completely uncalled for, and goddam but it's calculated just so that almost no one's gonna call her on it.

Thanks for backing me up. Not too many other people seemed to notice. I wondered if I was just being paranoid--like when other people misunderstood that comment from Pony that never occurred to me as trans-related. I do wonder sometimes, like when bellatrys says "It didn't take long [for you to start acting like a sexist asshole]." Part of me wants to go, "Just what does that mean?" But most of me's pretty sure she's just talking about the comments thread, and of course I don't want to sound like the big paranoid hardass derailer tranny.

It's what's keeping me--okay, I succumbed to temptation once--from bringing up "feminist analysis" wrt transpeople. The same arguments are used to support the same liberties against a supposedly complicit group of people with the same excuse--that they receive the same kind of support from the patriarchy--with the same vituperative confused language and the same silencing result.

It's not petty at all, piny. She was being a loathsome fuck. -More- loathsome because of that "is she saying?...nah" quality; she's far too canny not to have known -exactly- what she was doing, both stab and smile. honestly i'd've been far less offended by "fuck you, you fucking fuck

And it's made much harder by the fact that

1) most people aren't terribly sensitive to subtle shit that doesn't directly concern them, seeing as how they're all wrapped up in their own shit

2) that goes quadruple or more for big online thrashes

3) most important: unfortunately, this is exactly why people like this are so fucking deadly (yes, I said it). it is a level of abuse that goes way beyond simple lashing out with nasty words. it is carefully aimed; it is dependent on context in order for one to really understand how truly nasty it is; and it is also calculated precisely so that very few people except the target -will- understand the context.

so that not only does it go unremarked, if the target -does- choose to remark on it, it is entirely likely that as you say, it will be seen as petty or worse. and the complainer very likely begins to feel not only further abused but "am I going crazy?" and the abuser retreats--as the shitstain did so many, many times during that whole huge thrash--all wide-eyed and gormless: who, little me? garsh, I was just playing. yer all so SENSITIVE.

fuck you. fuck you once, fuck you twice, fuck you chicken soup with mice, fuck you right in the nasal cavity.

i have seen her pull similar shit in other instances. again, easily missed if you're not looking. but every so often a second or third look reveals a level of viciousness that's simply -breathtaking.-

as for the pony business: yes, the interpretation of what she said there as subtly transhating a la Twisty was ludicrous, but understandable in that she does have a history of being an utterly nasty POS herself. it's just ludicrous because, unlike Twisty, she is an addlepated twit who very likely doesn't know "transgendered" from her inviolate asshole (anal sex is a patriarchal plot, you know).

...that, and of course (now i remember) was clearly referring to someone and something else entirely.

which is not to come to her defense, seeing as how she's now demonstrating her great Luv of the Wimmin by mocking Renegade Evolution's appearance, with much glee and barking. and suggesting that she's only defending herself and her chosen profession because she's peddling her wares; the men who defend her are clearly both fucking her; you know. since she refused to accept that she was, -must- be, as pony keeps insisting all whores are, a sad desperate crack-addicted streetwalker.

anyway back to the subject at hand (most people understand exactly what Pony is; she is tolerated, when she is primarily out of pity, and because she does sometimes seem to pull it together and act kind and friendly):

I know exactly what this sounds like to most people. I know. It's okay. You don't have to believe me. frustrating as it is when so many people don't, can't, won't see it. that is my problem, i accept this.

fastlad will understand this reference (part of our shared history):

"I don't care what you say. You're never going to convince me that he's not a nice guy."

Ahhh, nice. The power of nice! Gentility! Geniality! Thank you notes and flattery and slaps on the back! It goes -such- a long way.

which is not to come to her defense, seeing as how she's now demonstrating her great Luv of the Wimmin by mocking Renegade Evolution's appearance, with much glee and barking.

God, she's so annoying. It didn't occur to me to read closer in part because with her, I'd always err on the side of word-salad rather than word-play.

See, this is what I'm talking about! It's not even just mocking a woman for dressing/looking/screwing like a slut, it's mocking her for doing a lousy fucking job of it. I mean, leave Rachel Bussel's floppy gazongas alone.

antip: I'll let piny decide where and whether he wants to recap what this was, but essentially: it was sort of the equivalent of someone who, annoyed at something Twisty had called out about their online behavior, and simultaneously well aware of her cancer history and her then-current no-doubt heightened level of stress:

"Drop dead."

Well, no, actually, this was subtler than that; at least one understands "drop dead" to be an insult, if not necessarily inclined to believe the poison arrow behind it.

yeh, I am constantly marvelling at the level of misogyny among the mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-who's-the-most-righteous-feminist-of-all?brigade.

Pony was I believe one of the ones who told antip she, antip, wasn't really a feminist, which is just precious, all things considered.

g-m-r and her "you're that professional virgin who had her vagina embalmed!" business.

and yes, the constant, constant, CONSTANT slut-baiting. and now even among people who've been calling themselves "sex positive feminists;"

and you know, I am thinking, is it as simple and nasty as this? -Is- this what I am thinking? "I'm sex-positive, but I'm not THAT kind of sex-positive feminist; at least -I'm not a whore,- you intellectually dishonest, bloated parasitical, um. Whore.

and uh yeah maybe you -are- ruining it for everyone at that. -I'm- not; blowjobs are just ducky, cause -I- perform blowjobs and proudly say so! But whoring is SO NOT OKAY, because I WOULD NEVER DO THAT.

and it is really important that y'all understand that I WOULD NEVER DO THAT.

I remember that comment but totally didn't understand the response when I first read it. Now I look at it closer and, well...fascinating. You're serious that she actually meant that?

Well, so, having long ago been written off in the Twisty world (and happily so) as "Mandos, Mandos, Mandos", I can see that even if one considers her behaviour to be nasty to certain people, well, that in itself performs a certain service to society. There are a lot of people who really do need to see someone who is absolutely uncompromising and will make no exceptions and will skewer THEIR boogeymen.

Some of the boogeymen may not really deserve that kind of treatment, but there are people who HAVE that boogeyman, and that's a side effect of what some people have been through.

And that wasn't fucking uncompromising; that was a nasty underhanded personal attack. Had fuck-all to do with values or ideology (she's never claimed to be anti-TG before for political reasons, unlike say Heart). I could probably find other examples of similar shit, if not quite as egregious. Maybe. did i care to go hunting for exactly where they were.

But sure, I understand exactly what that exchange is, along with the rest of the "uncompromising skewering" is about; it is the same one that is often made in WWF matches, beer halls, megachurches, and small encampments out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Among other places.

anyway I just finally lost my shit over at Pandagon. i mean jesus fuck: how many more flying monkeys do we have to send after the Derrida (whom I could give a fart in a high wind) woman? How many more previously reasonable-seeming people are gonna pick up on that self-serving bullshit about "we're just asking you to examine your choices! for your own good! I mean mine! I mean ours! wait, I can't tell the difference! all I know is that you're -so sensitive-, whereas -I- am just trying to be rational and politically critiquing, whatever can be the matter with you?" FUCK this noise, I said, in reponse to someone basically telling a friend just that, "you're too sensitive," on account of this is a POLITICAL DEBATE, see.

RIIIIIIIGGGGHHHHT.

nothing PERSONAL of COURSE. well the personal IS political, just -don't take it personally- when I tell you how fucked up you are. As it happens you remind me of me, specifically the bits I really don't like about myself, but we're -still- gonna keep talking about YOU on account of this is SERIOUS POLITICAL DEBATE.

GAH.

I said, roughly,

"this is not fucking DEBATE. it never has been. not the fucking Sex Wars. not "the personal is political." not DEBATE. we're not standing over podiums throwing stats and logical arguments about global economic policy, pip pip jolly good round, let's go for a fucking cup of tea. This is serious nasty -personal- emotional shit. Sex. Desire. Abuse. PERSONAL STORIES about all of the above. And you're seriously going to stand there poker-faced and claim that well gee golly don't take it PERSONALLY? oh MARY.

look, you bunch of obdurate fuckstains, it isn't just IDEAS you're slicing and dicing, and sticking your fingers in your ears and going LALALALALA I can't see the pile of steaming guts on the floor, oh wait, no, shit, now they're MY guts, WELL THAT'S VERY DIFFERENT FOR FUCK'S SAKE, does not. do. shit. to help. anything. not SHIT.

This is not "debate." This is some entirely fucked-up attempt at group therapy where no one knows what they're doing, no one is -honest- about what they're doing, if they're even capable, and it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.

My personal red flags REALLY go up whenever I see or hear that line. Because, that's one that my mom used with me all the time as a kid. And far too often, when I've tried to talk about the subtle emotional abuse implicit in that statement, I've been met with blank stares. (Which of course makes me wonder if the people I'm talking to are thinking, "Shit, she is too sensitive!"

Okay, I just read through the latest bullshit in the coffee cup feminist thread and now I am REALLY riled up. Earlier today, I was determined to take the high road and NOT post shit about Amanda and how she's changed her tone over the past year and a half - because as B|L mentioned in email, she's definitely been thru some shit in her personal life, and I didn't want to turn around and do the same shit to her that has been done to RandomBird, RKB, and all the others who've been pulled through the proverbial wringer.

But now? I don't know. I have a vindictive side, and it is rearing its ugly head.

I'm thinking, "Yeah, I'll blog the SHIT outta this. We'll see how you like it when YOU'RE the one being scrutinized and picked apart as a public spectacle, Amanda."

You know, I'd never read much of her before all this, truth be known, tho' I'd had her on the blogroll. only checked in every once in a blue moon.

Whatever else she may be, all I can think is: a REAL asshole.

or, you know, working some shit out.

well, honey, we've all got ours.

so. over. these. people.

and yeah: i am getting the strong impression that "not that kind of sex-positive feminist" means "hey, sucking cock is okay, as long as you examine your reasons for it, your position, and the astrological portents! I did! Turns out, what a surprise, I, personally, like sucking cock! However! Whoring is BAD. I'm NOT A WHORE! I may like sucking cock, but I'M NOT A WHORE! Just thought i'd make that really really clear."

I've never read the site regularly. The closest I've come to that is reading Ezra Klein's blog every day and a half.

All I know is that Amanda a) went on record saying porn has nothing to do with rape, b) responded to Twisty's blowjob thread in a way that reminded me of my "it's legitimate to ask..." language, and c) identifies as a liberal feminist.

All I know is that Amanda a) went on record saying porn has nothing to do with rape, b) responded to Twisty's blowjob thread in a way that reminded me of my "it's legitimate to ask..." language, and c) identifies as a liberal feminist.

Pretty much. And she defends Twisty's hyperbolic language, but only because she firmly believes it's hyperbole. I like and respect Amanda a great deal; I get the feeling that a lot of us are bringing some personal shit to this conflict and how we might talk to or over RandomBird, for better or worse. Myself included.

-weary shrug.- I'll take your word for it. I just saw what was happening in that thread--and the way she's been talking to/about KH, which just rings -off,- and not just because i like the woman i -hope- --and finally just lost my shit.

and frankly i'm furious because I Blame.

well, you know

for starting the practice of spotlighting some random woman, distorting her into funny shapes for the sake of amusement and edification and sending the flying monkeys after her in the process. i've seen this dog and pony show one too many goddam times and i am SO.

um.

PMS'ing.

also.

but also: OVER IT.

*sob* I WANT to be OVER THIS i HATE EVERYONE RIGHT NOW AND I DON'T LIKE IT

...why, lookie here! I do believe I done examined myself! And found another insight! I AM envious! I want to be worshipped for my sadism, too! get (relative) fame and maybe even a budding writing career -all while still being a giant asshole-, too! ...oh, and i found some spinach or some crap caught between my molars.

*belch*

right, that's better.

"well, I'm on my way,I don't know where I'm going,I'm on my way,Taking my time but I don't know where..."

oh shit you KNOW you're tripping on hormones and shit when you start breaking out the lyrics to express Deeply Felt Emotion.

-weary shrug.- I'll take your word for it. I just saw what was happening in that thread--and the way she's been talking to/about KH, which just rings -off,- and not just because i like the woman i -hope- --and finally just lost my shit.

Well, it was bullshit. I haven't been reading KH for very long, and frankly some of what she has written has gone over my head; so I don't think I was just "defending a friend" or anything like that. I smelled bullshit and called it out.

I mean, the woman was defending herself from invective like "bloated parasite" hurled at her; and she's still participating politely; -and- talking rather thoroughly in-depth about this shit in ways no one else has, at least for a while; and -she's- "intellectually dishonest?" Say wha? Am I down the rabbit hole again? How is it that people keep seeming to read her as, I don't know, whatever it was supposed to be, a glowing and uncritical defense of all johns everywhere? Since when does some finding of a board where--damn, who knew, right?--men are talking like horrid misogynistic swine--prove, well, anything, except that some men, johns included, are horrid misogynistic probably-abusive swine? Whoever said there weren't? And what is with all the statistical whipping it out, anyway? Was. oh. anyway. grarghrargjrarghghghgh.

Well, kinda politely. She's been willing to toss some invective back in her turn.

...I don't want to chalk this up to emotionalism, because I think that Amanda et al. have strong political differences with KH, and are angry because their read of her political positions leads them to very negative conclusions. However, I think that people are reacting to the extremely analytical take on something that they're used to treating with a certain level of emotion. I understand that reaction; I feel the same way when people discuss other issues in calculus language. Plus, it can be especially infuriating when someone is unemotional; that can mean that they have no personal connection to the issue, viz. the civility debates.

I think that she's also been stuck into the "MRA/male-pro-feminist" position, such that she's supposed to be a little more careful. If someone misreads her, she's supposed to say, "Oops, sorry, I see how you could have reached that conclusion. Yes, that was extremely unfortunate and fucked-up phrasing, but that's not what I meant at all. Here, let me rephrase, and let us forget the original completely."

If someone misreads her, she's supposed to say, "Oops, sorry, I see how you could have reached that conclusion. Yes, that was extremely unfortunate and fucked-up phrasing, but that's not what I meant at all. Here, let me rephrase, and let us forget the original completely."

I think that's really fucked up. There's being sensitive to other people's feelings/perceptions/mis-readings, and then there's walking on eggshells to accomodate someone else's complex. And, of course, she's not an MRA. (Obviously.)

I think that's really fucked up. There's being sensitive to other people's feelings/perceptions/mis-readings, and then there's walking on eggshells to accomodate someone else's complex. And, of course, she's not an MRA. (Obviously.)

(Shrug)

It's sometimes what I have to do. I'm not saying it's right; I'm saying it might explain some stuff.

Plus, although this isn't related to KH specifically, I do distinguish between x random blogger none of us know from eve and someone who's chosen to participate in this debate.

I think that she's also been stuck into the "MRA/male-pro-feminist" position, such that she's supposed to be a little more careful. If someone misreads her, she's supposed to say, "Oops, sorry, I see how you could have reached that conclusion. Yes, that was extremely unfortunate and fucked-up phrasing, but that's not what I meant at all. Here, let me rephrase, and let us forget the original completely."

Why? More often than not, "If you can't talk to people who don't mouth off the exact platitudes you expect them to, you should go back to ranting to your echo chamber and leave the rest of us alone" can be just as effective.

Why? More often than not, "If you can't talk to people who don't mouth off the exact platitudes you expect them to, you should go back to ranting to your echo chamber and leave the rest of us alone" can be just as effective.

Yeah, that's been working just great. It's not a matter of platitudes, but of sensitivity to language. Like the gendered reclamation option of "bitch," or the mixed-company differential of "tranny." KH made a comparison that strikes me as kinda ill-considered--I think someone occupying a different position in the debate wouldn't have been taken so much to task for it.

Well, maybe I didn't follow the whole thing carefully enough--I'm not remembering what you were referring to.

but it pisses me off when people speak out of personal experience and other people try to tell them they don't know what they're talking about, clearly don't give a damn about the people -they- care about, etc.

or, has been repeatedly happening, keep reading "I am only saying -not everyone- is like this" with "Why don't you believe [all] johns are like this?! They're EVOL. I read about it! I found some evol johns!"

and no, it's probably not fair to lay most of this on Amanda per se, the whole thing's such a fuckoff mess.

and sure, KH has given as good as she got; I don't blame her for it at all.

I think perhaps you know the problem here may just be that we all think we're rooting for the underdog, but some of us have different ideas of who that underdog is in this equation than others.

and, you know, I hear you that yes, it's important to make considerations for context, realpolitik matters more than what "should" be, but really: how much more "fair" does a person have to be, for fuck's sake? How many times do you need to sit patiently through being called a man and a parasite and a brainwashed enabler and a sexist whore who's probably ugly anyway and LALALALALA I AM SEEMINGLY CONSTITUTIONALLY INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOU'RE ACTUALLY SAYING HERE, with practically -none- of the fair and balanced good ol' liberals saying a dickie-bird, before just saying, "oh, you know what, fuck this shit?"

I mean I honestly am seeing at least as many comparisons in -this- case to I don't know a gay or pro-gay marriage person wandering into a conservative board earnestly discussing whether Those People are poor souls who need our compassion as they struggle with this burden of sin which is likely not their fault, you know I read this study that says blahblah were abused by their fathers versus That's All Fine But They're Still Responsible For Their Choices, with maybe an ex-gay or two piping up about how awful the Lifestyle is, they know, they were there and saw the degenerate grim horror for themselves...and suggesting the wacky notion that um, hi, actually some of Those People are right here and can speak for themselves, and no in fact are -not- all Karposi Sarcoma-speckled crystal addicts just waiting for their next meaningless encounter in an alley or tearoom. And no, it's not always all The Children's Hour or The Boys in the Band, either, you "enlightened," compassionate souls: we're just people, ya know? And oh yeah: let's talk about gay marriage. Here's why I'm for it.

sits back and awaits protesting howls of how dare I make the comparison to homophobic bigots, clearly there's just no talking to me at all, I Just Don't Understand.

I understand what you mean, piny. And I agree that there is a place and a need for... deference? That's not the right word, but I can't think of a better one right now. It just seems like KH was totally undeserving of such treatment in this case. She wasn't a random blogger who showed up out of the blue.

I mean, homophobes are Bad People! Beyond the Pale! We're -nothing at all- like Those People! And how dare you suggest we're homophobic! Some of my best friends are gay! I apologize for being heterocentric all the time! Hell, I flagellate myself for it regularly! How dare you try to make us feel guilty and ashamed and embarassed for being a thoughtless jerk when that's so clearly OUR job!

Well, maybe I didn't follow the whole thing carefully enough--I'm not remembering what you were referring to.

The Wally Loman thing. I see where KH is coming from. I get the sense that she's a very lawyerly writer--in the good way--and that syntax is a very detailed science for her. I see what she meant with the Loman comment, and I can diagram it as she intended. Still, I understand where delphyne is coming from. That was kind of a stupid comparison, particularly since it's saved only by some narrow grammatical margins, and KH would have done better to phrase it differently. I think that if KH were someone else, it or at least subsequent clarifications would have been received differently.

and, you know, I hear you that yes, it's important to make considerations for context, realpolitik matters more than what "should" be, but really: how much more "fair" does a person have to be, for fuck's sake? How many times do you need to sit patiently through being called a man and a parasite and a brainwashed enabler and a sexist whore who's probably ugly anyway and LALALALALA I AM SEEMINGLY CONSTITUTIONALLY INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING WHAT YOU'RE ACTUALLY SAYING HERE, with practically -none- of the fair and balanced good ol' liberals saying a dickie-bird, before just saying, "oh, you know what, fuck this shit?"

...you know what my favorite moment in that whole mess was? When I suggested, on the thread where PM wanted us to "examine our assumptions," you know, come, let us reason together, I suggested that -just maybe- part of what was going on here was (I clearly meant- I thought? was -not- suggesting that I was singling out PM or anyone else) part of our deep Patriarchal conditioning to think whores are, well, beyond the pale.

Response? "That's a terrible thing to say!" Never even crossed my mind! "Bent over backwards" to be fair! Why, why, that might be asking us to -examine the cultural roots of our beliefs and feelings!- We've already done that! Look! misogynists! says the straight man! Why don't you believe that there are terrible misogynists out there who hate ALL women, which is why there is no such thing as a special category for whore-hatred, even though that's all we've been fucking talking about for weeks now, is just how whores are a Special Case?

Hold on...sorry: Willy Loman, titular character in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (or in German, Der Tod eines Handlungsreisenden*). He's the archetypal wage schlub, miserable in his dead-end job.

Basically, KH made the point that more wage-schlubs have had the life sucked out of them by their depressing dead-end jobs than there are whores in the world. Her syntax was messed-up, though, and buried in one of her thornpatch posts, so delphyne read it as, "More wage-schlubs have died miserable deaths than whores," or even, "Wage-schlubs are more likely to die miserable deaths than whores." You can see why those two statements would piss someone off. KH has since clarified, and explained that she was comparing schlub-esque misery between professions and not attempting to comment on serious physical harm or deep misery e.g. sexual abuse, enslavement, and drug addiction. Delphyne doesn't believe her and thinks it's all backpedaling bullsnot.

Oh, and Bob Hayes is Robert, erstwhile commenter at feministe and current commenter at amptoons. He tends to offer incredibly lawyerly comments, like yesterday when he derailed a discussion of charity by insisting on a rather technical definition of "coercion" such that democratically-enacted tax codes qualify. Like, yes, that's very interesting, but who cares? He tends to use very technical language, and isn't always completely on topic. He's also sexist.

oh, lordie. KH could have gotten TF herself to make that sentence sparkling crystal clear and delphyne still would have jumped all over her shit for the audacity of making any such comparison, as would any number of the flying monkeys.

so, wait, you're not saying you think KH is Bob Hayes, too?

anyway, you know, there were two other self-ID's prostitutes (at least) in that original thread: they both of them got exactly the same suspicion-to-invective; worse, even.

I mean, I -suspect- that KH was using that sort of dry scholarly language precisely as a defense mechanism, because frankly anything less and you immediately get people jumping all over the place howling about how clearly this is a sleazy pimp or john talking about his disgusting prurient hoo-ha, no real woman would ever talk like that; and did you notice that the other two weren't even given the benefit of being taken as seriously as -that?-

so, yeah, you know, from a VC perspective I do get it somewhat: stranger comes in, norms exist, shit happens. But it's way more than that, you know.

I mean, if people were actually interested in genuinely learning instead of using every opportunity to trot out their own hobbyhorses and/or go into paryoxsms of pointless guilt-tripping, self and/or others, all the while patting themselves on the back for how -enlightened- they are...

and, you know, too: meanwhile, not very far away, you have people like kactus posting on her own board about gee, well, what about those of us who've done it part-time just to, you know, keep the fucking lights on? are we part-time patriarchy enablers or what? and other women, working-class and poor women, WOC chiming in with, yeah, you know, this is why I've been having a hard time with the term "feminist."

which you know would be an interesting perspective to add to this mix, but somehow these folks don't seem to make it onto places like Pandagon or Punkass so often, (that I've seen) and gee, you know, I wonder why.

No, I'm saying that her diction is probably causing some prejudice. She sounds like Bob Hayes, strictly in terms of syntaxa nd argumentative approach--I don't think their politics have that much in common. In fact, she sounds like the lovechild of Bob Hayes and BitchLab.

I mean, I -suspect- that KH was using that sort of dry scholarly language precisely as a defense mechanism, because frankly anything less and you immediately get people jumping all over the place howling about how clearly this is a sleazy pimp or john talking about his disgusting prurient hoo-ha, no real woman would ever talk like that; and did you notice that the other two weren't even given the benefit of being taken as seriously as -that?-

Well, and didn't that happen? I seem to remember at least one person assuming KH was male.

I thought the first pandagon thread with KH was the one where two women went over to another woman's blog and started pulling up entries about her personal life to "critique."

oh, joy, I missed the prequel, apparently. you mean where two -other- women went to yet -another- woman's life to pull up details about her personal shit? My goodness, we sure are awfully fond of this these days, aren't we? How in the world did we get so confident of our ability to Share The Good News? Give help to the helpless, hope to the hopeless, hap to the hapless, hip to the hipless? gee, I wonder.

oh, joy, I missed the prequel, apparently. you mean where two -other- women went to yet -another- woman's life to pull up details about her personal shit?

It was horrible. A woman, IIRC a sex-worker, was commenting on one of the pandagon prostitution threads. Two other women went to her blog, pulled up some entries on her sexual activity with her boyfriends, and started dissecting them in the pandagon thread. "What did you mean by this? Don't you think this is a little sexist?" A couple people complained, KH one of them. It still creeps me out. It was...gratuitous.

I live in fear of someone using my personal life to tear down my political arguments; that's one reason I keep a lot of it the hell off my blog. What happens when someone up and decides that transition is all a figment of my anorexic brain?

Just out of sheer schadenfreude or something, may I ask who the two women were?

and goddam, is it just me, or is this all beginning to take on a distinctly Maoist air? hey, now there was a Cultural Revolution for ya!

" Although the bourgeoisie has been overthrown, it is still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds, and endeavor to stage a comeback. The proletariat must do just the opposite: It must meet head-on every challenge of the bourgeoisie in the ideological field and use the new ideas, culture, customs, and habits of the proletariat to change the mental outlook of the whole of society. At present, our objective is to struggle against and crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road, to criticize and repudiate the reactionary bourgeois academic "authorities" and the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes and to transform education, literature and art, and all other parts of the superstructure that do not correspond to the socialist economic base, so as to facilitate the consolidation and development of the socialist system."

bd -- the person who first attacked the prostitute was Samantha. You know the woman in question. You went to her blog, told her chin up, and she showed up to say hi on one of your threads. I don't know who else went there to pick apart her comments. the worst part was, if you read the whole blog, she has obviously been feeling really blue because she really loved the guy but they broke up for whatever reason. so, she's alreayd been feeling badly lately and then they show up to dump road salt on the wound and grind it in with their boots.

but she's you know, so knowledgable and passionate about this important, sensitive subject; we must all defer.

no one ever seems to think, in all their examining, of wondering -why- this is such a particular passion for the woman in the first place.

at least with people who've actually been in The Business and had a shit godawful time, or even people who've been personally working with them, or even people who have awful sexual and other abuse at the hands of men and just can't even look at this stuff without feeling sick, I understand.

her and delphyne, and some others: I dunno. all I know is: ew, seriously.

still, I cling for now, perhaps (probably) naively, to the belief that there is or can be power in vulnerability. as long as you have other tools, other resources, other ways of shoring up the boundaries, other strengths.

I live in fear of someone using my personal life to tear down my political arguments; that's one reason I keep a lot of it the hell off my blog. What happens when someone up and decides that transition is all a figment of my anorexic brain?

You bring up old snark used in response to ad hominem arguments, and make an example out of them. When you have your echo chamber on your side, and on Feministe you do, the truth is all you need.

Mind you, there's a huge "Do as I say, not as I do" element here - for years I blogged on an alias a few years older than myself in order to preempt age-bashing. But people apparently associate youngness with wrongness more than they do femaleness or transness or low weight.

still, I cling for now, perhaps (probably) naively, to the belief that there is or can be power in vulnerability. as long as you have other tools, other resources, other ways of shoring up the boundaries, other strengths.

I guess you're right... popular culture, at least, seems to be very positive toward vulnerable people who have their moments of strength. The stereotypical movie hero is no longer a robot without any weakness, but a person who can overcome his/her vulnerability.

And, of course, in a debate like this, perception is reality. The point is to appeal to the echo chamber, to know how to talk to it without being characterized as an Other (do people really use the term "othering"/"othered," or is it just me?). So this perception of vulnerability-cum-strength is a very powerful tool, I think.

>>>> I do wonder sometimes, like when bellatrys says "It didn't take long [for you to start acting like a sexist asshole]." Part of me wants to go, "Just what does that mean?" But most of me's pretty sure she's just talking about the comments thread, and of course I don't want to sound like the big paranoid hardass derailer tranny. <<<<

Oh horse shit. She was making a stupid ass comment about the transition. And, frankly, I just lost it at that and then when you didn't I thought, hell.

In fact, I stood there telling R about the incident saying, "Well, piny had to go through a lot of pre-transition therapy and has been really proactive in his involvement in online communities, so I'm sure he alreayd knew he'd hear this crap the minute he transitioned -- as if transition is one freakin' operation anyway.

seriously. i thought the restraint was from being understanding and expecting the comment.

and basically sort of pummeled about with self-doubt because no one else seems to be seeing it the way you do, so better hold your peace; and after all, person -might have- meant well; it's really better on the whole to at least assume the best of people, both because of my own -trying- for integrity i.e. not wanting to be as awful as these awful people who I really wish I could find some way to not see -just how awful they're being to me-, and because...oh, hell. Why bother? I need to protect my sanity if nothing else.

Actually, I didn't go through very much therapy specific to transition, although I've seen a therapist for other reasons in the past. The informed-consent model is another thing I'm not terribly eager to blog about. I did spend a lot of time online and IRL talking to other guys, if only because I spent a lot of time dithering pre-transition.

I just wasn't sure, and that was why I didn't confront her. Maybe I should have, though: "See? Here's another complaint that has nothing to do with tone."

I was having this same argument with you-know-who a few months ago, the first time she showed up on my blog posts. Except with her, she was trying to argue that her niceness made everything else go away.

So...why was that offensive? It wasn't because she responded harshly to me; "That's a stupid fucking argument," would have been fine. It wasn't because she called me sexist; "You're a misogynist shithead," would have been fine. It wasn't because she was graphically, crassly mean, either. It was because she made my comment and my politics about my transition. I would have drawn the same distinction between, "Geez, you really have your head up your ass today," and, "Steroids fucking with your head much?"

I'm not using good examples here, but...it's not just about using crass language. It's about the way in which that crass language is humiliating and insulting based on the identity of the person involved. Like "ditz:" stupid and female. Assuming it wasn't just about, say, my first comment on the thread, "It didn't take long..." wasn't only, "Gee, you're really a misogynist asshole, aren't you?"

So is this the same thing? There do have to be good ways to complain about woman == hole, assuming the Irigaray connection seems a little strained. But how do you do that--and I am not talking about tone, here--without making the woman's politics about her sex life?

-oh, right. -that- you-know-who. took me a second. yeah, it is true: there really are 31 flavors' worth of being completely full of shit.

It really galls me that my arguments are being read as on a level with you-know-who's, I tell you what.

Thing is, there were also some arguments about tone in that context such that certain other people weren't allowed to speak harshly or at all. At the same time, dehumanizing arguments against them were just political truth to putative power.

Basically, what you're talking about is the difference between being called an asshole and being called a nigger... am I correct?

Not quite, because the debate is over your politics; those are being conflated with your identity. The difference between being called a sexist asshole engaging in a sexist practice and, oh, a forty-year-old "husband and father" who will never look like anything but the most transparent of drag queens.

-And now she is losing people, Amanda is, or is heading in that direction; and she can't or won't seem to see it.-

Can you hear that note? In all of what was admittedly just really frigging stupid and pointless? That slightly hysterical note?

Not really, but that's just me. I probably lost readers and commenters, too, and you might well have done; that's what happens during these big, stupid blog blowups. And some people get more involved and more interested; I'm sure Amanda and Twisty et al. have gained commenters, and I think you and Bitch might have seen a few new regulars during the last conflagration. I'm just pissed off about being thrown onto one "side" or another, such that I have any responsibility for KH's beliefs at all. And then being told that I'm the one forcing everyone to choose sides. It'd be irritating, if I hadn't made the command decision to stop caring, I swear.

I think that Amanda likes Twisty for a lot of the reasons most people like Twisty, for the reasons I liked Twisty: she says things that Amanda agrees with in ways she appreciates. She is clever and funny and holds feminist beliefs that are common to a lot of feminist bloggers. In this case, I think Amanda was wrong, and unfair to at least a few of her opponents, but I don't think this was sinister. Just obnoxious.

Plus, oblivious is oblivious; I'm not terribly anxious about anyone else's failure to pick up on the Twisty thing, or to have any interest in seeing her as eeeeeeeevil (I don't, come to that). My unwillingness to engage with her any further is my own affair.

That's cool. Like I said: truly not expecting to convince anyone, you're probably right in that it doesn't really matter in the great scheme o'things (I have this tendency to get shall we say over-involved in Dwama. you may have noticed). And I don't actually see her as capital e-EVILLL as in "WE'RE GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD, PINKY!"

i realize that yes, that sounded how it sounded, and, well, hey, at least no one can say i'm talking like this for the sake of credibility and ratings with the top guys in the world, right?

cranky crank cranky. 'scool.

There's nothing so very out of the ordinary about TF, or any of the shit i'm saying. There are probably a good oh i don't know pick your percentage of folks like this running around at any given time. pretty bland, not dramatic. most people wouldn't see a thing, and that's probably just fine; no real MAJOR harm done.

and you know, i freely cop to talking out of my ass wrt Amanda and for that matter either one wrt real life shit. Who the fuck knows what really is going on. I tend toward the Dwamatic when i, you know, feel strongly. i'm sure people are laughing their asses over that last one right now; 'scool, i earned it.

All I know is, it kind of pushes my own personal buttons for reasons i will not go into, when someone suddenly does, as i -gather- has happened here, pretty much a 180on personal beliefs, -and- is suddenly kind of like well, merged? best pals? this was just a -fleeting- impression from what i saw at Pandagon, really--with the person who's been espousing such whatever all along; -and- said person has just been through a very hard time; -and- is, well, on the whole? acting a bit hinky.

because, truth be known, i really hadn't even known they were friends especially when this first started playing out wherever it did, you know, the KH and before business. And maybe Amanda's always had the same sort of personality; like i said, dunno her really at all.

i just remember reading and thinking in passing: well, one, are we reading the same thing?

which okay could've just been, stranger in our midst, and well, yes, same damn thing that i think wa happening with KH for many many: strong unacknowledged feeling because: WHORE we don't want to be associated that's going a bridge too far for xyz reasons yadda.

but yeah, the kind of , i'm gonan stick to this, note of hysteria, "intellectual dishonesty," BL is a troll or whatever, all this kind of lashing out...

yeah i don't know, maybe she's always like this.

maybe it mainly has to do with unresolved shit wrt whatever the hell it was.

-maybe it's none of my business.-

Okay.

All's I'm saying is; even before i was making well CONNECTIONS, i thought: geez. Weird! Huh. well, whatev.

anyway, i dunno -were- i her friend, i might be just a trifle concerned i guess; it seemed, well, not entirely rational, somehow. maybe it's totally all just me and my shit.

i didn't actually realize you'd been accused of taking KH's side or whatever it was.

and sure, I'm quite sure she does like her, hell probably always -did- like her, for, as you say, all the same reasons many of us like or liked her. She's very likable, is Twisty.

You know what I'd like? Putting aside all the okay crazy-talk about Sinister Motives (and look, whatever else, to me "getting ahead and getting attention" is not in itself especially Sinister), i wonder if, you know, any of Twisty's real friends ever call her on her, well, behavior.

'cause, you know, friends do that, sometimes, call each other out.

as we've seen.

And like i said: really? All's I'd actually ask for is some, you know, recognition, that there is a problem here. Some acknowledgment that yeah okay, maybe this hosting style or whatever you want to call it, is not, you know, the best thing for all readers and other living things.

I don't expect any such request even formally or directly made will have any impact at all.

hence i suppose my bitterness.

maybe that's my problem.

strike the maybe.

But then, too, I get, well, let's say, rather fiercely protective, when i see what -appears- to me like a nasty gutshot. Or six.

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